A charity for teenage mothers funded by the Evening Standard’s award-winning Dispossessed campaign is saving taxpayers more than six pounds for every pound invested in it.

The Straight Talking project is being held up as a stunning example of how innovative schemes can make a massive difference to some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Running in 11 boroughs across London, the charity trains and pays teenage mothers to go into schools and educate their peers about safe sex, delaying parenthood and self esteem.

Carly Barforth, 27, has two children, Jaydah, nine, and three-year-old Layla and is working as a peer educator. She says: “I admit it now, I wanted to get pregnant. I was that girl who thought having a baby would give me a family unit and a house and a life.

“That’s how a lot of young people feel. I hated school and I had a difficult home life. Now it’s amazing to go into schools and have people listen to me.

“When you start, you always get these girls who sit there saying they want a baby, that they’ll get benefits and a house and stuff.

“We go through what money they’ll get and how much babies and bills cost, and what it’s like, and by the end they’ve changed their minds.

“It makes me feel good about myself. I love my children but it’s really hard and I don’t think people realise that.”

The Dispossessed Fund has awarded £19,961 to Straight Talking, based in Hounslow, to help fund the recruiting and training of 15 teenage parents to join the ranks of peer educators already going into schools.

It is described as a win-win situation — teenage pregnancy rates are falling, while the young mothers, sometimes for the first time in their lives, are given access to education, training and a future.

A new study by accountants Deloitte for the Department for Education found that the “social return” — savings in terms of benefits, healthcare, taxes and other costs — was £6.22 for every pound invested in the project.

Michela Coker, 18, who lives with 19-month-old Tyrese in a mother and baby unit, said the project had made an enormous difference to her life. “When you’re a teenage mum

everyone has this stereotype of you. You go to mother and baby groups and you can see people looking at you a certain way,” she said.

“In some ways you overcompensate, trying to make everything perfect and thinking you’ve got to do it all yourself, and that makes life even harder.

“It’s really lonely. Coming here and being able to talk to other people who know what it’s like is great.”

The bustling HQ of Straight Talking is staffed by young mothers — and one teen father — who have gone through the programme and are gaining other skills and qualifications while helping train the next generation of peer educators.

The young mothers often come to the scheme via word of mouth or after being referred by local mother and baby groups.

It is not a handout system. They spend days being trained in how to talk to their peers, as well as taking lessons in child protection, classroom management and equal opportunities.

They are paid £20 for each school session they do but have to pay for their own childcare and are expected to turn up on time and neatly dressed. They then spend several weeks going into a school, instigating role play scenarios, talking about the pressures of motherhood and telling pupils about just how much — or how little — the benefits system will pay them.

For some, going into schools as a peer educator is their first positive experience of the system.

Straight Talking’s chief executive Hilary Pannack said: “One of our biggest problems is securing funding for the future and this grant is incredible. It means we can expand a programme that we know works for everyone — for the girls who have become mothers, the pregnancies we prevent and society as a whole.

“I’m just so passionate about this because we know it delivers; 95 per cent of our teen mums come off benefits and go into education and training with the support of the charity.

“We have two girls with MAs now, several have gone on to be teachers, we have bankers, scientists, youth workers, a community police officer, and one now sits on the board of trustees.

“These are girls who often had dropped out of school before they got pregnant, who never thought about having a job or getting qualifications, who often thought having a baby would be the solution to their problems.”

Leah Moyse, 21, and her boyfriend Tony Flack, 28, have a five-year-old daughter and both work for the charity. Tony said: “The boys in the schools don’t think contraception is their problem. I tell them they can’t just walk away from a baby.”

Leah, who was so terrified when she became pregnant at 16 that she didn’t tell her parents for seven months, is one of the success stories — she is studying for a degree in molecular science at the Open University and wants to become a medical physicist.

For Ms Pannack, the Dispossessed grant has meant a lifeline and the possibility of expanding the scheme.

“One thing I’d really like to look at is the whole thing of domestic violence and teenage parenthood,” she said. “We know there is a real link — a lot of these young women have already experienced domestic violence, and it all comes down to self-esteem.

“That’s why I think this project works. It makes these girls feel they are doing something worthwhile, that they have something to give to other people. Self-esteem is the key.”